The Chicago Tribune has
recently opened up a barrage on Soviet Russia. I have sent down clippings of these
editorials to the embassy and the New York Office. I have also attempted to find
out the causes and results of this most recent campaign.

1. On the face of it, the campaign is an attempt to prove that the United Nations
owe no loyalty and very little gratitude to Soviet Russia. The USSR is represented
as being an aggressive and almost entirely amoral power. It is pointed out that
she only entered the war because of Hitler's attack, and was not in any way
opposed to Germany or Fascism on moral grounds. "A starkly realistic attitude"
sees Russia as an equal menace to world security with Germany. As evidence of
Russia's aggressive tendencies, attention is drawn to the recent dispute with
Poland over boundaries, the absorption of the Baltic states in 1940, and the
war with Finland in 1939. As evidence of Russia's untrustworthiness, it is pointed
out that Russia has not yet even opened a second front in the Pacific.

2. 3rd March I had a long private conversation, lasting some three hours, with
Mr Leon Stolz, Editorial Editor of the Tribune. He at once raised the question
of Russia's future intentions. I asked him why he was so interested in that
problem now. He replied that the end of the war in Europe was obviously near
and people had to be awakened to the menace of Bolshevism.